Don't Die for Me
by skyeward
Summary: (Prompt: what goes on inside Jack's head when she 'gets' Miranda the first time… When Miranda suddenly somewhat reciprocates Jack's confusing feelings?) "I don't believe in love and I can't say the words - maybe I'll never be able to say them - but I do believe in her and that's good enough. For now." Rated for swears, mostly.


"I love your eyes."

I blink, a little thrown off. Considering that less than five minutes ago she was digging her claws into my shoulderblades and demanding that I fuck her 'harder, god dammit!', this is a pretty unexpected change of direction. Maybe she's just feeling weird in the aftermath of the mind-blowing (as always) orgasm I gave her. Hard to tell when her back is to me and half the bed separates us.

"Excuse me?"

She sighs and rolls over to face me, moves into me, twisting her legs with mine and mashing our hips and bellies and chests together. It feels weird, to be honest. It's too intimate - we're almost never this close unless we're fucking. Actually, scratch that. We're never this close, even when we _are_ fucking

"I love your eyes," she repeats, either utterly unperturbed or doing a damn good job of pretending. She touches my face with gentle fingers, tracing my eyebrows and cheekbones and ghosting over my lips and it's too much…too close. I'm feeling too much, and she's too close, way too close to beig inside me in ways I haven't felt for a long time…that I never want to feel again.

I grab at her hands and pin them above her head; I need them the hell off of me. Throwing one leg over hers and pushing her onto her back, I feel a little less out-of-control.

"Oh yeah? What else of mine do you love, huh?" I roll my hips suggestively, grinding against the softness of her lower belly. It feels strange without my dick, but I need to make things make sense again, and sex is the only way I know how. Fucking is simple, uncomplicated by this sudden intimacy, by these bullshit _feelings_ that I don't have and she definitely wouldn't return even if I did.

She just smiles, looking up at me with those ice-floe eyes that don't look _nearly_ cold enough right now.

"I love _you_," she says quietly, like that's just a thing you can just _say_.

I've got to get away. I need to get out of here, away from her and her eyes and her lying mouth that makes these bullshit words.

But she's got me trapped. Her thighs pin down my calves, and when I lift my hands she grabs those too, pulling them down to rest on either side of her head. I can't - I can't do this.

"Goddamn it, let me go!" My hands are glowing brightly, my whole body shimmering faintly blue as the panic rises in my throat, and the stupid bitch just shakes her head, still looking up at me with those goddamn eyes. It takes me a second to realize that she's glowing too…and that if she doesn't let me go in the next three fucking seconds, we're going to destroy yet another hotel room.

"No," she responds simply, and I have no idea why I haven't just murdered her already. It would be so easy, her head is right there and my hands are already shaking to just…to just…

I fucking can't.

"I love you," she says again, her hands still around my wrists and her eyes fucking hypnotizing me or something - I can't look away. "I don't know how you feel about me, but I've been in love with you for a while now and I'm damn tired of not saying it."

"You're not a lesbian."

What the fuck is wrong with me? Seriously, that's the only goddamn thing that I can spit out right now? I may as well just lay down and die - Jack's got no more juice left in her.

Clearly Miranda understands that for some reason I can't fucking think at the moment, so she just raises one eyebrow and waits while I get my brain back online.

"You…how…why? Why would you fucking say that!?"

I try to pull away again and this time she lets me. I'm on top of her, my hands are free, and my biotics seem unaffected by whatever short circuit has fried my brain…but for some reason the bitch is still alive.

And fuck if I don't want to touch her. She looks like an goddamn engraved invitation to fuck, hands up and lying still atop the messy black waves of hair that cover the pillow, eyes open and seeking mine. I just want to sink into her, to wrap myself in her heat and her scent and her…her love. I throw myself off of her.

My head itches all over, a million little things like bugs' legs skittering around inside, and I sit on the edge of the bed with my face in my hands, trying to make them shut the fuck up so I can _think_. Miranda, at least, has the sense to keep her mouth shut and her hands to herself.

Nothing makes sense. This is not where I'm supposed to be, not what I'm supposed to be doing or thinking or feeling. Absolutely none of this is right…but maybe that's how it's supposed to be.

"Let me get this straight," I can't help a bitter chuckle, "Ha, straight. I thought you were…hell, I thought I was! Then you walk up with that fucking _ass_ of yours, and next thing I know I'm tapping it like my life depends on it. So far so good?"

I still can't bring myself to look at her - I can't even open my eyes, actually. The best I can do is to move my hands so she can hear me at least.

"Yes…" she says softly, and I can feel her shifting behind me.

"Don't," I command. She stops moving and sighs. It sounds sad, and it feels like somebody just shanked me in the chest. "You…somewhere, somehow, you fell in love with me. In _love_, with _me_. And you thought that was something I needed to know? What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?"

Her voice is defensive when she answers, and some of that familiar anger has returned. It comforts me a little, bizarrely enough.

"There's nothing wrong with me! Yes, I believed myself to be heterosexual, and in fact I see no reason, other than you, to think myself otherwise." Her voice drops, becomes soft and…well, almost hesitant. I can almost see the way her hand and fingers move when she tucks her hair behind one ear as she gathers her thoughts and chooses her words. "You are…an anomaly. But I know my own feelings, and I refuse to continue denying them simply to spare your delicate sensibilities!"

And now we're back in our usual territory: sniping, cutting remarks, arguments that usually escalate into physical confrontations. It's easy, it's clear, it makes sense. Something in my chest loosens, and I take my first full breath since her comment about my eyes.

"Oh, _my_ delicate sensibilities, huh? Well isn't that _gracious_ of Your Highness, holding out for such a long fucking time before throwing your feelings at me without even asking if I want the goddamn things! The hell do you even want from me?"

I'm almost yelling now, but it feels better than the strained quiet. Yelling I know, fighting I know, blood and pain and killing I know. Love…

Her voice is quiet, defeated.

"Nothing," she says, and I can barely hear her. "I don't want anything from you that you don't already give me."

"Liar," I snap back, but it feels weak even to me. "Fucking liar."

There's a thud as she falls back onto the bed, and the rustling of the sheets tells me she's moving around but gives no other clues.

"I just want you," she answers after a tense moment of silence, "Just you, as you are. No games, no toys, no fighting. Just you, and me, and my…" Her voice breaks a little, and I'm almost sure I hear her sniffling behind me. "And my stupid, unrequited love."

She finishes with a quiet sob and I grit my teeth. I could get up, I could run, bolt out the door - not like I fucking care that I'm naked. I could turn around and take her in my arms and…and what? Gush out a bunch of pussy-ass feelings that nobody fucking needs? Hold her down and fuck her till we can both forget about the whole thing? Let her…let her do whatever it is she's asking for?

The only thing I can't do, not for another goddamn second, is stay here with my head in my hands and my back turned on the only living person stupid enough to fall for the psycho killer bitch from hell…or maybe Purgatory, heh.

"Just don't…don't die for me," I find myself saying out of the black. Once the words are out, I can't take them back…I don't want to. There's a moment of silence, and her voice when she answers is thick with tears but with a distinct note of her usual sarcastic humour.

"I wasn't planning on it."

"And I…and I won't die for you either. Got me?" For a second I'm not sure if she understands, if she hears what I _mean_…but then her hands are on my back, her lips on my neck, and I can feel her tears brushing off onto my shoulders.

"I understand," she breathes, and I fall into her. Her touch is gentle that night, her mouth worshipful as she breathes me in, takes me on, just the way I am.

I don't believe in love and I can't say the words - maybe I'll never be able to say them - but I do believe in her and that's good enough. For now.


End file.
